Fear
by SnowyRefuge
Summary: If people were afraid of Shizuo because of his temper and strength, they were afraid of Hikari because of her appearance and heritage. Set during Shizuo's high school days.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a short little thing to get me back into the swing of writing Durarara! before I start over with Insanity and Sticks and Stones. All chapters will be very short; in fact, this is about as long as they will get.**

**Disclaimer: If I was genius enough to write Durarara!, or Baccano!, then I wouldn't need to be writing fanfictions. Instead, all credit goes to the beautiful (although possibly twisted) mind of Ryougo Narita.**

**Fear**

**1**

Hands in pockets, a tall figure that towered over people, even with a slouched back... Combined with the frown of irritation etched on his countenance, Heiwajima Shizuo was the epitome of every other human being's worst fears come true.

Even if he tried to keep calm through most of high school, there was no denying his uncontrollable bouts of anger and his awe-inspiring strength which has been known to send objects as dangerous as street signs and desks in the direction of his terrified peers. His lack of socialization toward anyone other than a incessantly bumbling bespectacled boy was also no secret from within the school.

Whenever said bespectacled boy was out for the day, however- usually due to his obsessive tendencies over his roommate- Shizuo was left to sit alone atop the rooftop during his lunch period, his only company being that of a sandwich with a bottle of milk- more than likely picked up from a vending machine he uprooted and used as a weapon earlier that morning- and the occasional Kadota Kyouhei.

That particular day, Shinra had skipped school for the tenth time the whole year, although it probably hardly ever mattered to him since his brain must have been a hundred times the size of any normal human being's. So there Shizuo was, taking bites out of the sandwich his mother prepared for him, taking swigs of his milk- a strawberry flavor had flown out this morning, much to his pleasure. His brother Kasuka even had the decency not to snag his pudding last night, so he had desert, as well.

It was a warm day, a tad bit windy, and the sun was peeking down from the sky as tiny clouds dotted on along. Even the chirping of birds weren't loud enough for him to consider it being a bother.

The door up to the rooftop opened while he was finishing off his pudding, but he didn't bother to look over and see who it was. He already knew, without looking.

It was a deathly pale girl whose name he had either never become acquainted to or constantly escaped his mind. She came up every day during lunch, sneaking a small bottle of vodka out of her backpack and just lying down on the ground, soaking in the sun.

He couldn't even call the thing a "bottle," it was so small. It looked more like a test tube than anything. The only reason he knew it was vodka in the first place was because the scent could sometimes carry out pretty far.

As for the girl herself... Her dark hair is always completely straight, so much so that it typically looks like she'd just had a bucket of water poured over her head, and she always wore heavy eyeliner, which was normally thicker on the bottom so that it almost looked as if she had rings under her sharp eyes. Her gait was always awkward, with the quirk of always having her hands down at her sides. Whenever she began to sunbathe, however, she spread herself out completely, like a child making a snow angel, only bothering to sit up every now and then to take a sip from her vile.

She was a bit of an odd case, Shizuo would admit, but he'd met _much_ stranger people.

He never said a word, and neither did she, which suited him well. He preferred it this way, although not in the way that a person may think. Even if he didn't know this girl, he felt a strange sense of calm from her silent and distant companionship. He was afraid that maybe, if he said something, she would recognize this as Heiwajima Shizuo's territory and be frightened away, like most other students. So, in conclusion, he was rather fond of the silence _and_ distance.

After finishing his lunch, Shizuo leaned back against the chain-linked fence that separated him from a four-story drop of nothing but air. He closed his eyes, letting the sun pour over his face, and simply sat there.

The minutes ticked by with complete silence, save for the quiet singing of birds.

Suddenly, the wind picked up even more strongly that before, and he heard a few papers crinkling. Opening his eyes to find that a few papers were beginning to tug out of his opened back pack, he cursed and leaned over to shove them back in and zip up the bag. When he was finished, he leaned back, bracing himself against the wind and ready to close his eyes again when he caught sight of something curious out of the corner of his eye.

The wind must have come from the direction of the girl's feet, as her skirt was now flying back over her head, leaving a pair of exposed legs.

As soon as he realized this, Shizuo turned away, annoyed that she would let this happen, and blocked the sight from his vision with a hand placed at the side of his face. "Shit, lady; watch it!" He called out to her over the roaring wind. "You're flashin'!"

There was a brief pause before he got any kind of response.

"I'm wearing shorts."

It had been so quiet over the roar of the wind that Shizuo almost wasn't sure he heard her correctly. When he peeked over at her, however, he found that she was, indeed, wearing a pair of white shorts beneath her school uniform.

After this, he went back to closing his eyes and resting.

Kyouhei came up later and almost backed down the stairs in shock at the sight of the girl's skirt flying in the wind. He was just about to call out to her and say something when Shizuo told him. "She's alright. She's wearing shorts."


	2. Chapter 2

**Fear **

**2**

Some few weeks later, the girl hadn't come up, but Shinra was back and as annoying as ever, talking on about anything and everything that came to his mind: love, science, love, gossip, love, more love, science again...

Shizuo felt like he was going to beat the little bastard to the ground if he didn't stop talking so much.

"-Getting Celty into a dress last night, but that didn't really work out too well." Shinra laughed awkwardly, scratching his head while Shizuo tried his best to ignore the boy's rambling. "But I won't give up! Celty and I are in love, and if I'm going to marry her one day, then I need to be able to put her in a wedding dress, and- Oh, would you look at that? Seems like Hikari-Chan is out today."

Shizuo groaned. "Who the hell's Hikari?"

"Oh, you know Hikari-Chan," Shinra insisted, waving off the question with his trademark smile. "Shiro Hikari. She comes up here during lunch every day. She's in my class."

Shizuo thought about the girl with her too-straight hair, thick black eyeliner, and vile of vodka. "You telling me that _that_ girl's name translates into 'White Light'?"

Shinra laughed and nudged his companion in the ribs. "Look who's talking, Mr. Peaceful Island, Quiet Hero."

Shizuo merely grunted and leaned his head back against the fence, closing his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm a little unsure about this one, mainly because I'm not certain as to how Shizuo would react to this sort of situation. If anybody feels that he (or anyone else) is out of character here (or anywhere, for that matter), please feel free to inform me via review or PM.**

**Fear**

**3**

It was later that day that Shizuo next ran back into the girl, on his way home from school. She sleeping on the ground at some crowded street corner with a pair of black skinny jeans and a dark green T-Shirt. Next to her was a large, empty bottle of her trademark drink, laying on its side with a cracked bottom.

He also took note of the fact that her feet were bare. It looked like something might have nicked her pinky toe, as it was bleeding.

After a few moments of internal debate, Shizuo decided that it would probably be best to ask if she needed help, even if she was drunk.

"Oi, Shiro."

The girl groaned at his voice, opening a single eye and closing it immediately again when sun hit her face. "Go... way."

Shizuo felt his blood bubble at her slurred words. The way she was sitting out there in the middle of the day, she's pretty damn lucky some asshole hadn't come by to rape her yet, but she still wanted to sit there, drunk on her ass in the middle of Ikebukuro?

Besides the taste, this was another reason he hated alcohol. It made people do stupid things.

So, annoyed with the lack of gratitude, he turned to leave.

Only to see a suspicious group of boys eyeing her with mischievous grins.

Groaning, Shizuo turned around, plucked the girl off the ground, and shoved her over his shoulder.

There was a small pause for a response as the girl's drunken mind tried to process what had happened, but when it did, she took action by weakly beating his back. "Lemme go!"

"Goddammit, Shiro, hold still." Shizuo practically growled at the girl as the teenage boys who had previously had their eye on her walked away. "Where do you live?"

The girl stopped beating him. "Heijiwa?"

Close enough.

"Where do you live?" He repeated. He had to make this quick; the longer he talked with her, the more he wanted to shove her back into the concrete and leave her there to rot. "I'm taking you home so you don't get your stupid ass kidnapped."

There was another pause on her side. "Not s'poss go there 'night."

Shizuo quickly found that this helping thing was becoming more and more difficult for him as things went on. "Well, why the hell not?"

"Like school," she explained sleepily. "Haha says... too obvious. Wait till 'maro."

He had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but he obviously needed to come up with some sort of alternative to her home.

"Well, do you have any friends you can stay with?"

"Nah," she hiccuped, giggling at the sound. "Don't do friends."

As she went about giggling something unintelligibly to herself, Shizuo pulled out his phone and went to his list of contacts. Thus far, he only had four people: Kyouhei, his brother Kasuka, Shinra, and his mother.

He quickly clicked the third number and put it to his ear. As the phone began ringing, he started to walk around aimlessly, just for something to do so this damned girl wouldn't drive him to the edge.

Shinra picked up in the middle of the second ring.

"Shizuo!"

His voice was much too loud through the speakers and only served to deepen Shizuo's quickly diminishing temper.

"Shinra, I need to some help."

"Oh, really?" There was no hiding the disappointment in his voice. "It seems like you never call me, and when you finally do, it's for a favor." He sighed. "Well, I guess I'll take what I can get. So what do you need, buddy?"

"I picked up Shiro while on the way back from school." Shizuo grunted, grinding his teeth as Shiro continued to groan and moan in complaint. "She's drunk as hell and says she can't go home."

"Hikari-Chan?" Shinra pondered.

Just then, Shiro's voice bounced out into a fit shouts at a pair of concerned-looking teenage boys. "What... D'you think you're starin' at? ... Damn perverts!"

"Was that her?" Shinra inquired tentatively.

"Yeah. What do I do?"

The boy didn't talk for a while. "Why did she say she can't go home?"

"I dunno," Shizuo shifted the girl over his shoulder. "She said some shit I couldn't understand about her mom and that she couldn't go home until tomorrow."

"Oh!" It sounded as if Shinra now somehow understood the situation. "Yeah, well in that case, you can just bring her over to my place and she can stay in the guest room."

As much as Shizuo wouldn't trust Shinra with a girl in his apartment, he had met Shinra's roommate Celty on a few occasions, and she seemed trust-worthy enough to him.

The thing that bothered him, however, was how cool Shinra seemed about all this.

"Something wrong?" Shinra shook Shizuo out of his thoughts with that obnoxiously loud voice of his.

Shizuo shook his head, even though he knew Shinra wouldn't be able to see it. "It's nothing," he grunted. "Anyway, I'll have her over there in about half an hour."

"See you later, then!" With a simple goodbye, Shizuo hung up and started carrying Shiro out to Shinra's place. All the while, she did nothing but complain about how her head hurt and ramble on about how pretty and colorful the pigeons' necks are.


	4. Chapter 4

**Fear**

**4**

The next morning at lunch had been peaceful. The sun was out, with only a few stray clouds dotting the sky, and it was at the perfect temperature for just sitting out there. Shizuo finished his lunch- composed of a sandwich his mother had made him, some rice pudding, and almond milk- within a few minutes and proceeded to lay out on his back.

Shinra wasn't there yet, which was an added bonus. Usually, the boy would catch up to him on his way to the roof and talk his ear off the entire time, but something must of held him up. Maybe he'd had a lab in class that he needed to clean up after. Whatever it was, though, it had given Shizuo a chance to soak in some sunshine and enjoy the peace and quiet.

Soon enough, however, he felt the heat suddenly vanish from his face, and he knew that someone was standing over him, their shadow blocking the sun.

Agitated, Shizuo opened his eyes to find a pair of thin, sock-covered legs right next to his head. He looked up and, past the pair of white shorts he was able to make out under the girls' uniform skirt, found Shiro Hikari scratching her head awkwardly.

"What do you want?"

Shiro gripped at a piece of her iron-straight hair and combed downwards. She looked off to the side. "I, uh..." She paused, trying to find the right words to whatever it was she was trying to say. "Well, I can't remember what happened yesterday, but Shinra filled me in this morning. And I know that I can be pretty weird when I'm drunk. So, I just wanted to say... um..." She swallowed and finally looked down at him, making eye contact. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that. And thanks."

Shizuo merely grunted his response, and, having said her peace, Shiro Hikari went out to the other side of the roof and began her own sunbathing regime.

This time, however, Shizuo noticed that her hand was empty.


	5. Chapter 5

**Fear**

**5**

From that day on, the two continued to keep a quiet distance, but Shizuo couldn't help noticing the fact that Shiro never snuck another vile of vodka up to the roof.

Days went on like normal. Shinra came up with Shizuo and chatted his ear off. Shiro was never mentioned, and she laid on the pavement, completely still.

About once every few months, she would be missing from school, and Shizuo would typically find her sitting at the same street corner on the way from school, but each time he found that she was sober and alert, so he passed by without a second glance.

One day, however, it had been raining, so lunch on the roof was out of the question. Because of this, Shinra and Shizuo were stuck with simply eating in the cafeteria, where the voices were too loud, the kids were packed too closely together, the food smelled, and the florescent lights were too dull.

Shizuo slid into a seat at the corner of an empty table while Shinra sat opposite of him, chatting aimlessly. This time, there was so much noise around that Shizuo didn't even need to try and ignore him. He caught a glimpse of Shiro coming in to sit on the floor next to a window and rest her head against a wall. A group of girls at the table nearest to her immediately got up and scrambled away, pushing at one another to move faster.

"The hell's that about..."

Shinra somehow managed to hear his companion mutter this under his breath over the roar of the students. He turned around to look and sighed. "Hikari-Chan must be having trouble making friends again," he explained. "People are usually a little intimidated by her, understandably so."

Her words from that one night Shizuo found her drunk rang through his ears, _"Don't do friends."_

"What do you mean by that?" Shizuo barked. Suddenly, he found his blood temperature rising and tried to soothe it by drinking some chocolate milk.

Shinra looked a little surprised. "Well, I mean that she doesn't necessarily _try_ to make herself look any more friendly. I think she's actually been putting some extra eye shadow under her eyes lately." He confessed the next piece of information while leaning on one of his hands. "I don't really think it helps that her parents are a part of the Awakusu-Kai, either."

He'd said this so casually, it was as if he expected Shizuo to already know this. Which he didn't. Didn't Shinra know by now that he didn't keep up with stupid gossip stories?

It made a little more sense, now that he'd thought about it, though. Didn't she say that one day something about her home and school being too "obvious?" Maybe someone was after her parents.

"Huh." He looked back over at Shiro, who had now fallen asleep, and went back to eating.


	6. Chapter 6

**Fear**

**6**

His blood was boiling, pounding in his ears and screaming at him over and over again: "Kill that little bastard! Kill him! Kill him!"

The screeching of the school bench only egged Shizuo on in his anger as he hurled the thing at his target: Orihara Izaya.

Just the sight of that goddamned flea was enough to put his temper on edge, but then he had to actually _mention_ his little brother's name. Orihara shouldn't be talking to Shizuo at all, his temper with the boy was so thin, so his mentioning of Kasuka, first thing in the morning, was a direct threat, a challenge which Shizuo would gladly take if it meant he could smash his smug face into the concrete.

The bench left his hands, and his fox-faced enemy quickly dodged to the side, hand darting into his pocket that everyone knew contained an unidentifiable amount of pocket knives. Izaya flung one at him, nicking his arm, and made a hasty retreat outside of the school gates as Shizuo pulled out a street lamp and promptly began chasing him down the streets. As he was running outside the gates, however, he stopped as he found a wide-eyed Shiro Hikari, the large metal beam of his weapon only inches from her face.

He was distracted by her for only a moment, but when he looked back to where his target had run, he was already out of sight. Cursing, Shizuo threw the street lamp back into the school yard, where it landing with a screeching clang. He looked back over at Shiro, whose wide eyes had once again become sharp as ever and were currently staring at the bleeding cut on his arm. "Sorry," he muttered.

With that, he turned away and headed back home, deciding that he would skip school for the day. He probably needed to rummage through the cabinets at his house to find some band-aids for now and pay Shinra a visit later.


	7. Chapter 7

**Fear**

**7**

Shizuo was rather surprised when he found that Shiro still came to the rooftop the next day. Even more surprising, she seemed to be staring at him. Her gaze was rather intense, and honestly rather irritating. He even resorted to trying to listen to Shinra as he talked today, but even that did little to distract, as Shinra seemed discomforted by her, as well.

Finally, he snapped. "Why the hell are you staring?"

"Shizuo!" Shinra attempted to reprimand his companion for being rude, but he ignored him.

Shiro seemed to be ignoring him, as well. "Just noticing that you're really thin," she told him.

"So are you," Shizuo shot back.

She blinked and then looked away. "I meant too thin to be throwing street lamps around."

He grunted, and she went back to her business of laying around on the ground, fingers twitching for something that wasn't there. Every few minutes, however, he would still catch her throwing glances back at him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Forgot to update this yesterday. Oops.**

**Fear**

**8**

A week went by without any hitches. The end of the school year came, and when it resumed, things were just about the same. Shiro continued coming up for lunch and laid perfectly still and silent on the ground, Shinra continued to chatter on about his "wonderful, kind, and oh-so-sexy" roommate, and Shizuo simply sat through all of it.

One thing that Shizuo only noticed after a week in school was that Shiro was in his new class. He hadn't noticed her for the longest time, partially due to his disinterest in school as a whole, but also to her sitting in the very back corner of class, at least five seats over from him. The only reason it had even come to his attention was because their teacher had caught her doodling on her notes and demanded she show up for detention the next day.

Earlier that same evening, Shizuo earned himself two months worth of detention for threatening another student with hospitalization because he had called his own girlfriend a bitch and a whore.

He still wished he had the chance to smash the desk over the bastard's head. Anyone that treated their own girlfriend with as much disrespect as that _deserved_ to have their ass handed to them.

So when he showed up for detention during lunch the next day, he wasn't exactly surprised to see Shiro sitting in the front row, writing over and over again on her paper:

_I will not draw during class._

_I will not draw during class._

_I will not draw during class._

_..._

Under his teacher's instruction, he got out his own sheet and began writing down in his own sloppy handwriting:

_I will not fight with other students._

_I will not throw things at other students._

_I will not threaten to kill other students._

_I will not fight with other students._

_..._

About halfway through the lunch period, their teacher left them unattended for a few minutes to use the restroom. Shizuo noticed that Shiro looked over at the door before turning back to her punishment. With a smug grin on her face, she began doodling all over her words, a plethora of stick figures holding hands under a large, swirling circle.

Shizuo merely watched for a moment and then put down his pencil so that he could lay his head down on his desk.

When their teacher came in a couple of minutes later, she'd let them have it, limbs practically flailing in the air as her lungs burst and her screams assaulted the two teenagers. Shiro earned herself an extra week of detention, and Shizuo got a call to his mother, who gave him just as much of an ear-full when he got home.


	9. Chapter 9

**Hm... I seem to have forgotten to update for three days in a row. My bad.**

**Fear**

**9**

Two weeks later, the class was hit with a group world history project. Every group was supposed to come up with a short skit about World War II to record on camera and present to the class.

Shizuo, not knowing too many of the people in this class, was about to turn to the nearest person and ask them if he could join. Instead, he heard, from somewhere behind him, "Heiwajima? Want to group up?"

He turned around in search of the voice. He found a pair of sharp brown eyes staring at him.

"Sure," he responded.

"Cool." Shiro nodded her head. "Want to meet at the front gates after school to work on the script?"

"Sure."

"Cool."

Shizuo turned to the front of the class, as their allotted time to group up had run out, but tuned out whatever lecture their teacher was trying to give them.


	10. Chapter 10

**So, yeah, I ran out of pre-written chapters, so these will be coming out more slowly now.**

**Fear**

**10**

When school ended that day, Shizuo sat on the ground just outside the school gates. He waited there for a few minutes, watching as other students passed by, some of whom spotted him and made a display of shoving each other to move faster. Kyouhei stopped by to say hello, flanked by his usual crew of three, and Shinra found time to stop and tell him about all the latest happenings, as Shizuo was now spending lunch in detention.

After Shinra left, Shizuo found himself staring at the clouds, aggravated at the fact that Shiro hadn't turned up yet. He was getting ready to get up and leave in a rage at being ditched when he heard a sudden commotion from inside the school gates.

"You know, my cousin's in the Yellow Scarves, and he doesn't appreciate the damn yakuza butting in on his gang all the time."

"My brother's a Yellow Scarf, too, and he was a victim of that Awakusu-Kai attack last night!"

Sighing, Shizuo got up and peered around the corner. Shiro, hands straight at her side, stood in front of two boys. One of them was thin and tall while the other was thicker, with more muscle.

He also noticed that Shiro looked uncharacteristically angry.

"Look, I'm sorry that your brother is injured," She drawled out unapologetically," but it isn't my fault that he and his _idiot_ gang decided to attack an armed yakuza with led pipes and baseball bats. So just _fuck off_ and leave me alone."

The thin boy in particular seemed enraged. "Bitch, what did you just say to me?"

Shiro merely held up a hand with an ugly sneer on her face and jutted her middle finger into the air. "_Fuck. Off._"

Shiro suddenly looked past them, just as the large boy was forming a fist with his hand, and found her gaze locked on Shizuo.

Suddenly, the two boys followed her new line of vision and looked back at Shizuo, bewildered. After one look at the infamous brawler's face, the boys suddenly burst past him and out of the school gates, screaming about how Heiwajima Shizuo was going to rip their throats out.

"_**Where the hell do you think you're going**_?!" Shizuo spun around and prepared his legs for a take off. "_**Get back here you cowardly, no good**_-"

He felt a hand on his should and whipped around to face Shiro's sharp stare.

"What?!" He barked at her.

She tried not to flinch, although there was a slight jerk in Shiro's arm as she let go of him. "They're none of your business, so leave them alone." Looking agitated, she watched his face and, after seeing that he hadn't, indeed, calmed, sighed and pulled her backpack off of her shoulder. "I heard you smoke," she said as the began to unzip the back and scramble through it. "Maybe it'll help calm you down."

Shizuo wasn't really the type to wonder how she would know this when he had only picked up the habit two weeks ago, so he just stood there for a moment as the girl pulled out a pack of cigarettes, which she held out for him.

Shizuo stared at the object for a moment before grudgingly taking one of the sticks from Shiro's package and turning to exit the gate with the girl lazing behind him. Only once they were outside school grounds did he accept the lighter that she offered him.

He stood there, puffing out a stream of smoke, while Shiro continued rummaging through her bag. Finally, she emerged with her signature vile in hand and drowned the thing in one gulp. It was a little odd, considering he hadn't seen her with it in a while.

"I thought you quit," he grunted.

Shiro looked down guiltily. "I'm trying." She held the vile up to him. "Still carrying this around just in case, though." She shoved the vile back into her pocket and sighed. "Anyway, sorry about this, but I can't work on the project for now. My mom texted me a bit ago, and apparently my dad... well..." She trailed off, rubbing her temples. "Anyway, I just have to get home."

Shizuo just shrugged. "No problem." He didn't really feel like dealing with schoolwork now, anyway. Those two assholes put him out of the mood to do much of anything.

Shiro still looked distressed, though, as her eyes were wandering off to the side. "Well, I could always call later tonight so that we can work on the script then, if that's OK."

"Sure," he drawled, pulling his phone out of his pocket. There seemed to be a sudden light in Shiro's eyes as she pulled out her own from the shorts pocket under her skirt. They exchanged phones to add their numbers, and Shiro seemed excited about this for whatever reason. Her fingers moved quickly, but her hands were shaking. She ended up hitting the wrong numbers and having to go back so often that it took her a full minute to add her number into the phone.

When receiving her phone again, she immediately placed it back in her shorts pocket, but kept her hand in it, causing her skirt to bunch up and a few people to turn their heads away, embarrassed. One woman simply shook her head as she walked past them.

"Um." Shiro stood completely straight, her eyes darting every which way. "See you."

Shizuo waved as she turned around and walked away.

When he got home, Shizuo checked his phone and found that, rather than entering her full name, Shiro had imply enlisted herself as "Hikari."


	11. Chapter 11

**In response to Freddie4153: I choose to live!**

**Fear**

**11**

The project had taken quite the interesting turn. Kasuka had volunteered to be a recruit actor, and ended up playing the part of a rather convincing Hitler, storming about in front of the camera with a mustache hanging awkwardly under his nose. Shizuo and Hikari ended up playing the parts of Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini, respectively, with Shizuo mumbling his lines and staring off at the corner of the room, and Hikari, hands held stiffly at her sides, stared directly at the camera and spoke much too quickly for anyone to even understand. Even Shinra was more than willing to join in on the festivities as a German general, prancing alongside Kasuka and flinging his arms into the air every chance he could get.

The teacher, insisting that the entire production was lazy, and that the information provided was minimum (as well as relatively inaccurate), awarded Shizuo and Hikari with a C-. As neither of the two even had good grades in their history class in first place, both teenagers accepted the grade without any fuss.

The day after the video project, however, Hikari had vanished once more. Shizuo had thought little of it, already knowing that she'd be sitting at her usual street corner, but Shinra had seemed concerned about this turn of events.

"I was hoping we could all walk home together today," Shinra sighed as they walked out the school gates. "Boy, I hope she's not sick..."

"She's out all the time," Shizuo responded gruffly. "Never bothered you before."

The bespectacled boy frowned, looking up at his much taller companion. "How heartless!" He exclaimed. "Hikari-Chan _is_ our friend now, after all!"

_Friend? _Shizuo tossed the thought around his head. It wasn't every day that he made one of those; he only had three, counting Kyouhei and Kasuka, and he hesitated to call Shinra one. He wasn't quite sure that he was ready to lump Hikari into this category.

Instead of voicing this, however, Shizuo turned his head to look ahead of him.

And standing there, with that smug grin plastered on his face, was the very bane of his existence.

"Hey, there, Shizu-Chan!" Izaya waved and slipped his hands into his pockets. Shizuo clenched his fists. "Hikari-Chan, did you say? Strange; I wasn't aware that brutes like you could actually _make_ friends."

And with that, fists went flying, and Izaya was already slipping his way through the crowd.


End file.
